Strengths: 

1. Responsibility

2. Learner

3. Connectedness

4. Harmony

5. Includer

6. Positivity

As a teammate, my strengths of Responsibility and Learner kept us on track to achieving our goals and meeting our deadlines. One of my major roles in crafting our ideas was doing research on our topic and reporting back to the team to discuss what I found and how we can incorporate it into our proposal. I enjoyed digging deep for the nitty gritty details and summarizing what was important so that my groupmates could work on other parts of the project. 

I used my other strengths to keep the group cohesive and motivated. If I noticed a team member falling behind or becoming absent, I would check in with them to see how they were doing (which ended up being really important during our Tier 3 project, as a group member had to drop out due to overextending himself, but likely would have kept pushing his limits if no one checked in). Since the topic was one that I had experience in and was passionate about, I took advantage of my strength of Positivity as well, by always trying to be excited about the work we were doing.

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Saboteurs: My main saboteurs (Avoider, Stickler, Pleaser, and Controller) affect me as a result of my strengths of Harmony and Responsibility. I tend to avoid conflict, which can keep the peace, but affects me negatively by forcing me to bottle up my feelings. It can affect the group negatively, too, since by withholding my opinions I might also be withholding ideas to help the group achieve its goals. I also tend to want things done a certain way and get stressed out if even small things, like formatting or wording, are off. And since I'm an Avoider, my instinct is to fix it myself instead of mentioning it and potentially causing conflict.

Being aware of my saboteurs has really helped me overcome them. I find myself speaking up more (thought still not always) if I have a question or critique and I'm learning that as long as one isn't mean about it, people usually take constructive feedback well. I'm also working on letting go of small inconsistencies in group projects and assignments and reminding myself that at the end of the day, these details don't matter and are just more work for me.

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Personal Groupwork Statement: I believe that investing yourself in a group should equate to investing yourself in the people that make up that group. Even though this can be hard for me as an introvert, when I work in a group I try to ask my groupmates how their week is going and if they have anything coming up that week. If they have a big exam or a job interview I try to follow up and wish them good luck! This extends to conflict resolution, too. If someone in the group doesn't seem to be pulling their weight, I would rather check in with them and ask them how they're doing instead of accusing them of being absent from the group.

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Tier 2 Project: We worked with Animalearn, an organization that seeks to teach educators about the realities of animal dissection and the alternatives to this practice. They publish resources on the obtainment of animals used for dissection and have created a Science Bank, which allows educators to borrow ethical science education products for free. These products allow them to maintain a high quality of education without hurting animals or the environment. Animalearn advised us in the process of crafting our proposal, as animal dissection was an issue we wanted to address at the University of Delaware. Though the project did not end up being launched, it was a great experience in teamwork and how to tackle the root of a problem. We had to change course for Tier 3, as we had to partner with an organization that we could physically visit.

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